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Election committee nominees approved

Members of the Council of Representatives (COR) convened this week to approve nominees to the recently revamped Judicial Council Election Committee.

Judicial Council president Marcelo Perez explained the role of the committee to COR.

“Their primary focus will be to go over allegations when they arise as well as help facilitate elections, be in charge of the website and approve campaign posters,” he said.

Perez said during the short window for accepting applications to the new committee, they heard from a high number of interested students.

“These last two weeks we’ve been interviewing people for the committee,” he said. “We’ve had 45 [apply] for seven spots.”

The chosen applicants presented to the Council were Tom Burns, a junior Finance and Spanish major from Keough; Jimmy Garry, a sophomore finance and political ccience major from Fisher; Katie Hennessey, a sophomore Marketing major from Lewis; Thomas Hickey, a freshman mechanical engineering major from Duncan; Todd Ludwig, a senior science preprofessional major from Keenan; Katie Nolen, an undeclared freshman from Pasqurilla East; and Caitlin Ogren, an undeclared freshman from Pasqurilla West.

The Council voted to approve all candidates with 13 votes in favor, zero against, and zero abstaining.

The new committee differs from the dissolved one in that members were selected from the student body as a whole rather than each dorm having a representative. Perez said that the dorm-based system would continue, but in a smaller capacity.

“They do exist, except their sole purpose is to run dorm elections,” he said.

Judicial Council vice president for elections Michael Thomas said he and Perez intentionally chose a diverse group of students coming from different dorms, majors and classes.

“The challenge for Marcelo and I in selecting this committee was finding the most balanced group we could, since they’ll be making some very important decisions,” he said. “I think we can have full confidence in the Election Committee given that balance.”